A few days ago I met a photographer who told me an interesting story.
He’d set up a video camera to record the visitors to his stand at a local exhibition. He had all the gear – fancy camera, nice tripod, brand new shotgun mic. He even had a beautiful assistant to to around and visit the other exhibitors and do a short interview with each on their thoughts about the show.
But, there was a slight technical hitch.
He’d forgotten to plug the microphone in. Whoops. Several hours of footage and not a single syllable recorded. Not even mains hum. It was a classic case of [his words] “all the gear and no idea.” I reassured him that this was a mistake he’d never make again but it just goes to show that experience counts. Most of the [serious] professionals I know are pessimists. They expect a failure to occur, that’s why they check their equipment before going out on a shoot. There is far more to it than just formatting the memory cards, charging the batteries and cleaning the lens. You have to check things are working too.
Let me give you an example. The other day I was off out on a shoot. It was a simple affair, nothing complicated but as usual I checked the kit before I left. I’m really glad I did too as I found the battery in my radio trigger had died. Without it I would hve been stuck. Thankfully I had enough time to buy a replacement (2 in fact) before I arrived at the client’s house and the shoot was a big success. It could have been so very different. That single lithium cell was a single point of failure in my system I hadn’t identified before. It’s obvious in hindsight but until then I’d missed it. Now I always carry a spare, just in case?
Am I a pessimist? No, I’m a realist. If my equipment fails, I’m no longer a photographer. Failure is not an option.
